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About this episode
Tonight's episode takes you inside the most famous house on the planet for two stories that are equally strange and equally disturbing. The first is about a ghost that won't leave. Abraham Lincoln is the most frequently reported spirit in the history of the White House, seen by presidents, first ladies, prime ministers, and queens over the span of more than a hundred and fifty years.
But this isn't just a ghost story. It's a deep dive into Lincoln's own fascination with the supernatural, the séances held inside the White House after the death of his son Willie, and the explosive Spiritualism movement that swept across Civil War-era America as a nation drowning in grief searched desperately for a way to talk to its dead. Winston Churchill saw him. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands fainted at the sight of him. Eleanor Roosevelt felt him standing behind her. And the sightings have never stopped.
The second story is a murder mystery that took a hundred and forty-one years to investigate. President Zachary Taylor dropped dead in eighteen fifty, just five days after a Fourth of July celebration, and his death handed the presidency to a man who immediately reversed everything Taylor had fought for. Taylor was a slaveholder who'd turned against slavery's expansion, and his death was the single most convenient thing that could've happened for the pro-slavery forces trying to pass the Compromise of eighteen fifty. In nineteen ninety-one, a university professor convinced the state of Kentucky to dig him up and test his remains for arsenic.
What they found, and what they didn't find, is a story that raises as many questions as it answers.Two presidents. One who never left the building, and one who left it far too soon.
Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?
Send your suggestions to [email protected].
Disturbing History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.
Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.
Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.
But this isn't just a ghost story. It's a deep dive into Lincoln's own fascination with the supernatural, the séances held inside the White House after the death of his son Willie, and the explosive Spiritualism movement that swept across Civil War-era America as a nation drowning in grief searched desperately for a way to talk to its dead. Winston Churchill saw him. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands fainted at the sight of him. Eleanor Roosevelt felt him standing behind her. And the sightings have never stopped.
The second story is a murder mystery that took a hundred and forty-one years to investigate. President Zachary Taylor dropped dead in eighteen fifty, just five days after a Fourth of July celebration, and his death handed the presidency to a man who immediately reversed everything Taylor had fought for. Taylor was a slaveholder who'd turned against slavery's expansion, and his death was the single most convenient thing that could've happened for the pro-slavery forces trying to pass the Compromise of eighteen fifty. In nineteen ninety-one, a university professor convinced the state of Kentucky to dig him up and test his remains for arsenic.
What they found, and what they didn't find, is a story that raises as many questions as it answers.Two presidents. One who never left the building, and one who left it far too soon.
Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?
Send your suggestions to [email protected].
Disturbing History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.
Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.
Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.
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